


pinnacle of fashion

by orphan_account



Series: ficlets [19]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Getting Together, It's Sam's fault, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25820320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: tumblr prompt filled: everyone knows the 90s were the epitome of high fashion
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: ficlets [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1551151
Comments: 2
Kudos: 68





	pinnacle of fashion

The first time it happened, they thought it was a joke.

Steve was punching bag in the gym when Bucky came in wearing a bright blue leotard and a neon pink skin-tight singlet on top. He’d got his hair up in a bun and a mustard headband on with matching wristbands and he unrolled his yoga mat next to Sam’s and started his flow like nothing was wrong.

Steve met Sam’s eyes, and they both broke out laughing. They got a finger each, but it was too garish and over the top and they believed it was a prank by Bucky.

Until it happened again; post workout and Steve’s helping Bruce with dinner when Bucky walked in wearing a baggy pair of shorts with various Pokemons on it and an equally baggy, eye catchy neon green shirt.

Bruce stared and Steve did too. Bucky barked, “What?” Bruce let it go but Steve couldn’t. He opened his mouth to say something but the thought of judging someone by what they’re wearing is rude so he snapped his mouth shut and said nothing.

Didn’t mean he forgot it. It’s there every time he sees Bucky in various ‘90’s getup’ as what FRIDAY kindly supplied when Steve asked what happened to Bucky’s once-favourite all-black outfits.

“Sergeant Barnes took a liking to the 90s style, Captain.”

“Where did he even see those?”

“Sergeant Barnes was introduced to an American sitcom from 1990 by Mr Wilson.”

When confronted, all Sam had to say was, “It was The Fresh Prince, dude. It’s illegal to miss that.”

Steve grouchily agreed but it didn’t change the fact that Bucky was now walking around the tower in half-unbuttoned jeans overalls and neon colored outfits.

They’re too awful that for the first time, Steve understood what Tasha meant when she told him she couldn’t stand watching him ‘strut around looking like _that_ ’.

Except she is oddly having a ball with Bucky. 

Steve watches her watch Bucky in his purple turtleneck and a mustard singlet worn over that with his favourite baggiest pair of baggy jeans humming around steeping tea, with a small smile on her face and he feels suspicious. 

“You’re behind this, aren’t you?”

“Don’t discredit him, Steve. It’s his idea.”

“So you thought it was fit to buy him a bunch of those clothes?”

Natasha gives him a dirty look. “No. I only styled him.” Then just because she hates him, she adds, “Don’t be so jealous. Accept the fact that you’ll never be as fashionable as us, soviets and make peace with it.”

“Bucky is from Brooklyn!”

“And Donald Trump is a pumpkin, Steve,” she flips her hair and walks away.

She doesn’t tell him who’s supplying Bucky with all those atrocious clothing. 

“FRIDAY?” Steve murmurs, glaring at the confusing pair of jumpsuit Bucky’s wearing today.

Its floral or vomit. Steve gets headache if he looks any harder so he has to periodically look away to quell the nausea.

“Yes, Captain?”

“Where did Bucky get that?”

A pause, and then, “I’m afraid you have to be more specific, Captain.”

“His clothes. Where does he get them?” He shudders from another overload of vomit pattern.

“They’re gifts, Captain,” FRIDAY chirps brightly. 

“Gifts?”

“Indeed.”

Steve gets slightly distracted when Sam walks in, sees Bucky in that awful jumpsuits and cheers. They high-five, exchange some weird handshake between them and Steve has this ridiculous thought he’d wasted a lot of breath and time trying to make them befriend each other only for them to bond over a stupid fashion. 

He grits his teeth and asks, “From whom?”

FRIDAY supplies solemnly that she has been specifically ordered to not reveal it. That in itself is revealing enough. Steve corners the culprit in his natural habitat, screaming to a loud, obnoxious tune at the top of his lungs. 

“Why are you encouraging him?” Steve asks, ordering FRIDAY to cut off the music. Tony startles but brightens up when he sees Steve. 

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about mon kapitan.”

“Bucky,” Steve scowls. “You’re buying him all those 90s clothes and he’s walking around looking stupid.”

Tony gasps, clutching at his heart dramatically. “How dare -,” he whispers. Steve rolls his eyes. 

Tony sticks out his tongue. “He doesn’t look stupid. He’s looking fantastic. Everyone knows the 90s were the epitome of high fashion, Steve.”

Steve could swear Tony was lying except he catches Tony staring at Bucky with an overly fond look that evening over dinner and he thinks, maybe. Maybe Tony isn't lying at all.

-

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you’re jealous.” Bucky says casually one afternoon. A pint of ice cream in his hold and he’s shovelling it into his mouth while the summer sun burns his back. 

Steve chokes on a sip of ice lemonade from where he’s laid; a little more shadowy ground than that of Bucky’s. His Irish complexion doesn’t tan, it burns.

“I’m not jealous of you and Tony.” he jumps to defense, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Scandalised to even be accused such.

Bucky breaks into a slow victorious grin, the spoon dangling from between his teeth and he says, “I didn’t say what you were jealous of.”

If not the sun, Steve burns from humiliation. “I’m not,” he insists like a child accused of stealing from a cookie jar.

Bucky hums, scooping another spoonful into his mouth and he looks away thoughtfully. Steve follows his gaze, sees where it lands and he shakes his head, immediately looking away.

It’s Tony, lounging on a float with his shades on and a glass of bright orange something in one hand. He’s got a pair of shorts on and nothing else. A thousand times better than Bucky’s short and incredibly tight looking swimming trunk.

It’s so out there, that even Steve cannot help but catch himself looking. Just like now.

“Like what you see?” Bucky’s voice snaps him out of it and colors tomato red up his cheeks.

“It’s awful,” He grumbles petulantly, rubbing both hands down his face. Maybe he should just call it day and hide in his room. One humiliation after another is bad for the soul.

“You don’t have to hide what you like, Stevie.” Bucky says softly. 

Steve drops his hands and glares at him. He’s no longer shovelling ice cream into his mouth. In fact, he looks genuine from where’s sat, regarding Steve with curious eyes. 

“I hear it’s okay for fellas to like fellas these days.” There’s a clear intent in his statement. Just, what it is, Steve has a little trouble pointing it out.

“I - yeah,” he confirms.

Bucky nods, the corner of his mouth lifting a little and he’s looking down at the pint of ice cream on his lap when he speaks, but his words hit bull’s eye with daggers straight at Steve’s weakest point. “Remember, my first kiss?”

Steve inhales sharply, his throat going dry and his insides clamp. He manages a shaky nod, couldn’t avoid looking at Bucky even if he wants to run a mile away from him. If there was one thing Steve was hoping would stay out of Bucky’s memory permanently, for his own selfish purpose. It was that.

17 or 28, give or take seven decades in between, Steve is never going to be ready to acknowledge that particular event. It wasn’t that he hated it. Instead, it was quite the opposite. But the memory is tainted with sins and illicitness. Illegality and crippling fear and back then, it was traumatising. 

Even if today, he knows, logically, that it’s normal.

“Did you like it?” Bucky asks quietly and Steve feels his skin tingles. 

He cannot recall it, his mind refuses to. Secretly allowing a vivid recollection of it only in the darkness, when the rest of the world has gone to sleep and Steve is on the brink of his orgasm; close to breaking, consciousness shot to death and only his subconscious ruled.

“Bucky,” Steve warns roughly.

But Bucky keeps talking like he didn’t hear Steve. Like he’s remembering it for himself, by himself.

“Cause I did.” He smiles a little, twirling the spoon inside the pint. “I do,” he corrects softly. Then he tilts his head a little, frowns at his hand and he wonders aloud, “I didn’t force you did I?”

“No,” Steve rushes to negate. _Always_. Looking out to not make Bucky feel bad. Always ready to protect. “It was mutual.” He adds, biting his lip after in regret. There wasn’t a need to say that. 

Bucky looks up then, bright eyes glinting, and he looks equal part mischievous and reckless when he shares, “I remember loving you. Like a fella supposed to love a dame, yeah?” It’s rhetorical and Steve’s shot dead in cognition, but he nods jerkily anyway.

“Would you have stepped out with me if I asked you then?” Bucky cocks his head curiously, “Scratch that,” he waves, “Would you step out with me now?”

“Bucky,” Steve breathes painfully. He looks at his first love, his pal and his buddy, and he looks at his other love, the one who he dared to in this century; bore a crush so warm and secure in the core of his heart, he wasn’t ready to speak out, but he was ready to accept.

“Bucky,” he says seriously, “I think Tony likes you.”

“I know,” Bucky nods slowly, “I like him too.”

Steve blinks. “No,” he says, “I don’t think you understand. Tony likes you, like that.”

At that, he receives a flat stare, “I know that, Stevie. I like him too.” Bucky enunciates pointedly.

Now, Steve’s just confused. “And you’re asking me out?” 

Bucky rolls his eyes like he’s stupid. “Yes, I’m asking you out. I asked him out too. He said yes by the way. He’s just not sure if you like him like that.”

“What?” Steve turns to the pool where Tony’s steadily floating, not a single care in the world. It’s absurd. He cannot believe what Bucky’s saying. “Of course I like him. I just,” he stops, shaking his head firmly, “I would not come in between you and him like that.

“Oh please,” Bucky laughs, “By all mean, please do come in between us like that.”

When Steve gawks, Bucky’s glee mutes. 

“Stevie, doll-face,” he calls, and Steve looks from Tony to him. “Did you seriously live three years in this century without knowing what polyamory is? Do I have to educate you about everything?”

There’s a teasing tone to his question. A sly smirk which Steve scowls at long and hard before begrudgingly admitting, “What’s that.”

-

One short but compact lecture about polyamory later, Bucky sits on Steve’s bed and insists that in order to impress Tony, Steve has to start including 90s fashion into his daily style.

Steve balks. “I am not. Doing that.”

“Then you’re gonna have a tough chance wooing him. Especially me looking so dapper over here.” Bucky shrugs, pulling at a lone thread hanging off of his sleeve ends. It’s another obnoxious pattern; horizontal green and black stripes with baggy jeans he wears so low even if it’s secured by a red belt with its end poking out of the loops. 

There is no way Bucky seriously believes he’s dapper. “You said he likes me already.”

“I said he didn’t know if you like him like that. Not that he likes you.”

Steve stops in the middle of folding back all his clothes Bucky had strewn out over the mattress. Bucky grins. “Chill,” he says, abusing the term he’d learnt from Parker and his teenage gang. “I’m messing with ya. If he didn’t like you, he wouldn’t have said yes to the date.”

Something still feels wrong. Steve doesn’t like not knowing Tony’s opinion from his own mouth. “Are you sure?” He collapses on the bed. Tossing a crumpled shirt aside, he scrubs his face. “I don’t know if -,”

“Miss Fri?” Bucky sing songs. Steve startles, reaching over to smack Bucky’s mouth shut but the jerk ducks, cackling as he asks for Tony.

“Bucky!” Steve hisses, face increasingly heating up, palms clammy. He lunges for him but gets himself in a headlock with Bucky’s thighs around his neck. 

Sooner than expected, Tony’s voice booming through the speaker and Steve’s palming his face, mortified.

“I hear I’ve been summoned by the coldest Winter?”

Bucky snorts, “Not funny. I have Stevie here tryna pull out from our date. Tell him he’s wanted.”

Tony doesn’t even pause a beat, “Stevie, you’re wanted.” He repeats robotically.

“Tell him you like my 90s look.” Bucky bugs, and Tony, so obediently, like he’d never been with Steve, tells Steve just that. “I keep telling you Cap. Everyone knows the 90s were the epitome of high fashion.”

Bucky digs a toe under Steve’s arm, “Now you believe me?” Then he goes back to Tony, “Tony, tell him he needs to wear like me to impress you.”

This time there’s a long beat of silence. Bucky’s grip around Steve’s neck loosens. Steve cranes his neck to look at him. Bucky shrugs. “Tony?”

There’s a sigh. Then, “James, you know I don’t care how you dress or look right?” Tony asks seriously. 

Bucky rolls his eyes. Letting Steve go, he flips onto his stomach and flings an arm over Steve’s shoulder when Steve settles by his side. “Of course I know that. I just think it’d be cool to prank Stevie,” he knuckles Steve’s head pointedly, “And now you went and ruined it.”

Tony’s chuckle filters through the speaker. A little shaky and nervous. Steve perks up at that. 

“Is that right, Steve?” Tony asks, addressing him directly. Steve ducks away from Bucky’s arm, blood pooling at his cheeks and he turns his face away. 

“He’s blushing,” Bucky supplies dryly.

“Will you stop?” Steve hisses at him, aiming a kick and this time it meets the target, sending Bucky down the bed with a loud thump. 

“Is Buck -,” Steve starts and stops. He thinks hard and starts over, ignoring Bucky’s pained groans. Drama queen. 

“Do you really want to date Buck and me?” he asks Tony.

“Yeah,” is the raspy reply. “Unless you don’t -,”

“I do.” Steve interjects. “I. I really do.”

Tony chuckles again, this time still low but none of that shaky nervousness and Steve smiles at that, dopey. 

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky grunts, pushing himself up on the bed with an exaggerated effort. “Did you know he just pushed me off the bed?” He complains to Tony.

Steve rolls his eyes and kicks him again. Bucky goes down with another thump. “Again!” Bucky yells. “He did it again!”

Tony laughs, “Well they do say two is better than one.”

"Not when my ass is sore, sugar."

Steve shrugs, "I don't know about that..." he trails off.

Both Bucky and Tony gasps out aloud.


End file.
